


Where No One's Been

by Leia_Hackett



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), I Don't Even Know, I'm Bad At Tagging, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia_Hackett/pseuds/Leia_Hackett
Summary: WARNING - TROS SPOILERS!***«She leaves the lonely paths in her mind to let herself go following an instinct which has been tempting her for a long time, which threatened her strenuous search more than once. Rey would oppose to it, but immediately stops her efforts when she sees him. There’s no doubt about it, his raven hair and his bold, tall figure are unmistakable.He’s not alone, there is… Rey too.It’s not real then. They are visions. A heavy, distressing fondness keeps her from letting them go, and she finds herself with her hands open on her stomach and tears reaching her material body, streaming down her face and dropping on incandescent sand that lies under her floating figure.»Rey is constantly looking for him through the Force. Maybe, this time there's an answer.***Tiny, tiny Reylo. Fix-it (? I think...), inspired by Lateralus by Tool. Pretty weird, I know; it takes place... "in the Force". I apologize if I made mistakes, English is not my first language but I tried my best! I hope you enjoy :)
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Where No One's Been

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Where No One's Been](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/546070) by A r y a_. 



> If you notice any mistake please let me know, I read this multiple times but you know... it's never enough (especially if it's in a language which is not yours :P). By the way, I also put the link to the story in the original language I wrote it (Italian); yep, on the site I first published it on, my nickname is A r y a_ but I swear I'm the same person hahaha! Hope you enjoy and have some relief from the not-so-satisfying ending of the saga :)

_And following our will and wind  
We may just go where no one's been  
We'll ride the spiral to the end  
And may just go where no one's been_

Focus.

Her mind is a lake and it’s a desert, it’s a snow field. Everything’s flat, no peaks nor vales alter the universal landscape that unrolls in her mind and outside, through her whole body.  
Eyes are shut. She doesn’t need them to be open to examine vibrations through the Force, ripples on calm water.  
Never before, never since the dawn of times, there had not been at least two Force users: Rey is the last one alive.  
Sensitives’ breeze keeps blowing gently, interfeering weakly in the Force – waves on the lake, wind on some sand, snow upon snow. Everything is silent, the quiet humming of the sensitives* does not affect her sharp senses. She’s looking for something able to break that unnatural quietness, which fills her with tedium and frustration, unhappiness, incompleteness.

It’s been like that for months, since that damned day when everyone else had been celebrating the eventual fall of the First Order and the undead Emperor, looking towards future with hope, aiming for the reconstruction of a new, just world. On that day, she left her hope for the future behind. She had tried to convince herself that she needed just that – to obtain peace, justice, to fulfill her destiny as a jedi, dedicate to the Light Side. It couldn’t be like this.  
Ben Solo was gone.  
Rey believed that she had succeded in turning him to the Light; what a naive fool! He never fought against the Emperor to help the Resistance, but to help _her_. He didn’t join any side but _theirs_. He was on Ben and Rey’s side, Ben and Rey alone.  
She didn’t want to believe the truth which, every minute and every second, the Force was whispering in her mind. She pushed it back, a truth in which Light was not the only way, and Darkness was not to be defeated; black or white, jedi or sith. No compromises.  
She had gone to Tatooine, where she buried carefully Leia and Luke’s laser sabers, and she forged a golden blade for herself: the last jedi, fierce and lonely like she always had been, against the very same binary sunset which, years before, had seen the young face that would ultimately defeat darkness. Like she had ultimately defeated darkness.

All wrong. Force cannot be darkness, or light only.  
Rey understands this now, hardened by a long grieve – shorter that loneliness and vain hope she had endured on Jakku, but incredibly more powerful – and the meaningless waiting for something to heal the non-equilibrium state the Force was struggling in. She thought that she had carried balance, defeating her father’s father, just like Anakin Skywalker and his son Luke thought they brought balance when they killed Darth Sidious.

Yet, the crack is still there. It always has been. Light alone is not enough, and it has no meaning.  
She’s seeking for an answer in the Force itself, she has to accept the deepest truth.  
If light alone or darkness alone prevails, there’s umbalance, and therefore, war. Unbalance has been driving the entire universe until now. Even now she notices it, under a thin veil of seeming calm – something is missing. Equilibrium cannot be established if one of the two Sides is oppressed and overcome.  
Equilibrium is coexistence.

She never left Tatooine, but she has been using the Force incessantly. Her body holds the tiredness of one who has traveled for years, and she has seen places so far that even Han Solo hasn’t been to, she’s certain of it.  
She breathes in, squeezes her eyes tougher, decides that a final effort is worthy, at least for this day. She’s close, it doesn’t matter how much time, how much energy she will sacrifice.  
Nothing evens the sacrifice Ben Solo did for her. She has to find him. No matter if she’ll find him as a weak force ghost; the universe needs them both, _she_ needs him, and she knows he’s out there, somewhere.  
_No one’s ever really gone._

Focus.

She leaves the lonely paths in her mind to let herself go following an instinct which has been tempting her for a long time, which threatened her strenuous search more than once. Rey would oppose to it, but immediately stops her efforts when she sees him. There’s no doubt about it, his raven hair and his bold, tall figure are unmistakable.  
He’s not alone, there is… Rey too.  
It’s not real then. They are visions. A heavy, distressing fondness keeps her from letting them go, and she finds herself with her hands open on her stomach and tears reaching her material body, streaming down her face and dropping on incandescent sand that lies under her floating figure.

 _She sees what it has been._ A red blood crossed saber, sizzling sinisterly, clashes violently with a blue one. Two figures appear, on the climax of their battle, exhausted but full of determination; furious eyes that, yet, are looking each other in search of some kind of crack to sneak in.  
They find the crack, and both of them sneak in, because the crack they are looking through is the very same. A bond through the Force, a psychic bond and yet tangible, which let them understand how similar they are, in spite of their differences. Two sides of the same coin.  
She sees the moment when their fingers touched, when their light and darkness mixed up. When she witnessed his heavy burden she knew she shared it, because it was the same burden she had carried for all her life. The girl remembers when, in that brief moment, she forgot everything: the Dark Side, the Light Side, the First Order and the Resistance. Nothing mattered, only his safety – not by bringing him to the light, but taking him away from darkness.  
Then again his rat race for her loyalty, and hers for his, a fight in which none seemed to triumph or perish, until the final act.

The scene of their only, bittersweet kiss unfolds before her eyes. A memory so precious to Rey, that she keeps it as a secret to herself as well: in the vision, their faces are hidden. But she can clearly see the only smile he had ever shown her, or he had ever shown anybody at all. Her heart breaks for the second time, watching as he fades so quickly, no time for reconciliation, for an explanation, for a gentle word between the two.

 _She sees what has not yet come to pass._ She sees herself besides him, majestic, perfect figures, Light and Darkness; Rey, fair and ethereal, comes closer to Ben. It’s a peculiar phenomenon: everywhere their tunics touch, part of the light is absorbed into obscurity, and some light thins out darkness, in the very same point. They are close, and both brush the tips of their fingers on the other’s cheek. The girl in the vision takes the first step, and she kisses Ben Solo, grim and shadowy even though redeemed. Two creatures split-off of one being, originated from the same matter – Rey shakes, overwhelmed, like she was facing deities instead of a man and a woman.  
She suddenly sighs in wonder and bewilderment, as she realizes that she is not a spectator. She is part of it all, she is the only mistress of her own fate, and of the fate of the entire galaxy.

For a fleeting moment she thinks “Why Ben? Why _me_?”, but the thought fades quickly as it came.  
Abruptly the Force awakens, it’s not a desert nor an icy plain: it’s steep mountains and marine trenches, it’s storm and it’s quietness, it’s life, death.  
It is a spiral.  
Rey stands up so precipitously that the movement is reflected on her real body, still on Tatooine, and starts running towards the spiral as fast as she can, blowing from her lungs more air than she can inhale, all to no avail.  
She stops, she calms down, and she pulls herself together within the Force.  
There’s no need to run: the Force is everywhere and it permeates everything – the spiral is not to be reached, she already is in the spiral.

 _She sees what it is now._ Behind her back she still perceives her vision, but her future is not behind her, it never has been, not even when she was looking for the truth about her roots in her past, small and lonesome on Jakku.  
She turns ahead. There lies the answer.  
Before her, and at the same time at an unreachable distance, the spiral shrinks until it is one only vertex. On the other side, it widens again. Even though Rey cannot see further, she knows what, who is there, on the other end.

She shivers, the Force shivers, as she puts the index finger on the exact junction point:

_balance._

«Ben».

Her voice is firm, but it’s also consumed by the waiting and the anguish suffered in the past months. She knows he won’t be coming home, that he thinks he’s not worthy. It’s the same for her, though she stands on the side of the victorious. Actually, she is perfectly aware that none of the two will ever be able to return to a normal, integrated life; there’s no place in the world for him, nor for her, now, let alone for only one of the two.  
Because they’re a dyad, indivisible by definition. The Force knows. She knows, although she had battled against herself and her own destiny for a long time, while he was alive under the name of Kylo Ren.  
She never took his hand, but Ben Solo’s hand? Yes, she did. And she has to find the way to take it again, to let him guide her and to guide him herself.

«You have to tell me where you are, and how I can reach you».

Rey can’t see him, but she feels his black night stare and she is, all at once, gripped by the fear he won’t answer. That he doesn’t want to be found. That he will condemn himself due to his guilt and regret, condemning her too to endless damnation. That he will doom the Force to an eternal struggle between Good and Evil, that he will retract like she did to him in the past. That he doesn’t realize that it’s now and here that the final destiny of the universe will be settled, that he won’t accept the fact that the enormous task is there to be accomplished by them.  
_That he will refuse her._

Then a sigh of relief, a tranquil feeling stretches out her heart, which slows down as quick as it accelerated. Like tree roots sinking in the soil, the Force bond they share pervades her and once again, miraculously, she feels his thoughts, his breaths, his heart beating – the opposite pole of the dyad alive and pulsating.  
The girl opens her arms in a liberating cry, every doubt she held fades away, finally her mind is free of all the struggle and weariness and she sees every corner of all that was created.  
And Ben.  
Real, there, she can touch him and yet she doesn’t dare to, still trembling slightly. His voice is gentle like she only heard it in her visions, like she imagined it put next that last, mild smile he gave her before he expired.

«Rey».

«Thank you»  
“I know where you are, Ben Solo”.  
And if finding him means she has to ride the spiral to the edge between life and death, between everything and nothing, she will. Like he did for her.  
She’ll go where no one’s been.  
With him on her side, for the balance.

_For them._

**Author's Note:**

> *Sensitives: those who feel the Force, can interact with it, but do not use it.
> 
> Okay so. I wrote this down listening to Lateralus by Tool, the first four lines are the song's final lines (to be honest, there's another song by Tool even more fitting... but this "spiral" thing drove me mad and I had to write something about it!), I tried to stick to the canon ending they chose for The Rise of Skywalker. Ben is not alive, but not dead either. He's in a sort of "alternate dimension" ruled by the Force, therefore Rey and Rey only, who is the last Force user, can reach him (I think it's impossible to bring him back anyway, it's a one-way ticket). Yeah, quite sad... not really a fix-it, is it? Well, better than "BEN SOLO IS DEAD AND YOU CAN NEVER HAVE HIM BACK" for sure >:(  
> I hope you found the story enjoyable, if so let me know leaving some comments, I'd appreciate them a lot :) leave a comment also if you think this story sucks, or if there are horrible grammar mistakes or something. It... helps, you know. Not in a psychological way, but it helps :')  
> See you around!


End file.
